Posted on 08/05/2011 6:43:44 PM PDT by Noumenon
Economic Collapse & Security: I Am Your Worst Nightmare
By Jeff T.
I am the leader of a band of 8-to-12 looters. I have some basic military training. We move from place to place like locusts devouring everything in our path. My group is armed with light weapons and can develop and follow simple plans of attack. We take what we want by force of arms. We prefer none of our victims survive because that could cause problems for us in the future. It has been six months since the grid went down. You and the other five members of your party have settled into what may be a long grinding existence. The every day tasks of growing and gathering have now become routine. The news from the outside is extremely limited but you don’t really miss it much. Life is simple but physically demanding.
Although things may seem stable you will need to keep your team focused and alert. This is your first and most important layer of defense. You should hold an immediate reaction drill once per week. Keep things simple. Practice a specific response to such threats as injury, fire, attack and evacuation. Despite the challenges you must maintain contact with those around you such as neighbors for vital clues that trouble is brewing. Regular monitoring the radio will be critical in providing an early warning of trouble. You may be able to safely interview refugees with risking your party. Keep in mind the information you get from them may not always be reliable.
While you have been farming I have been learning the best tactics to employ to seize your property and your goods. I have been refining them since we hit the road right after the lights went out. I have conducted eight “hits” so far and have been successful seven times. Here are some of my “lessons learned”.
Intelligence gathering and target selection is critical to my success. Targets include those who have large quantities of fuel, food and other valuable supplies. My posse is constantly questioning anyone and everyone we contact searching for this our next victim. Anyone who has ever had knowledge, even second hand, of your preparations is someone of interest to me. I may approach them directly or indirectly. If anyone knows something I will find out about it. Who seems well-fed? Who still has transportation? Who has lights? Who was prepared? Where are they exactly? Somebody talks, either in person or on the radio. They always do.
We search for victims night and day. During the day we are listening for the sounds of machinery, cars, tractors, gunfire or generators. Day or night without a lot of wind those sounds can carry for miles. At night I look for any sort of light. Even a small flash indicates somebody with electricity and that means a rich target. I always have somebody listing to the scanner for any news, leads or insecure chatter. Operational Security (OPSEC) is an important concept for your entire group to understand and maintain. If somebody outside your circle doesn’t have a real need to know about your plans, preparations or procedures then they shouldn’t know period. Develop a cover story and live it like was a bulletproof vest. It is no less important to your protection and survival. During an event you need to blend in with the surrounding environment. Carefully observe noise (such as generators and other engines) and light discipline especially at night. If you need to test fire weapons do it in one sequence to avoid a prolonged noise signature.
Once I find and target you reconnaissance of your retreat is my next step. Only a fool would try to rush in and try to overwhelm a group of “survivalists”. We had a bad experience with that during our second hit. Now we spend at least a day or two trying to size up a large opportunity and the best way to take it down. I will observe retreat activity from a nearby-concealed position. I will get an idea of your numbers, weapons, routines and so much more by careful surreptitious observation. If your group seems alert, I will try and trigger a false alarm with a dog or child to watch your reaction to a threat. That helps me know how you respond, where you are strong and how to attack. I may also obtain a topographical map of the area to identify likely avenues of approach and potential escapes routes you will try to use. I may coerce your neighbors into uncovering a weak spot or access point or other important intelligence. I also have a Bearcat handheld scanner. I will be listening for any insecure chatter from your radios.
Regular patrols at irregular intervals focused on likely observation points and avenues of approach could keep me at bay. You could put down sand or other soft soil in key choke points as a way of “recording” if anyone has recently traveled through the land. Dogs, with their advanced sense of hearing and smell are able to detect and alert you to intruders well in advance of any human. Motion sensing infrared video cameras as a part of a security plan could play a part in your layered defense as long as you have power. A 24 hour manned observation point equipped with high quality optical tools is a must. It should be fortified and if possible concealed. It should have a weapon capable of reaching to the edges of your vision. Seismic intrusion devices, night vision and thermal imaging are phenomenal force multiplying tools. They can give you critical intelligence and warning. You should use them if you have them. Understand they are not fool proof and I can often neutralize them if I know you have them.
These tools and techniques provide you reaction time. Time to plan your response and time to execute that plan. Recognize that a “defender” is always at a disadvantage. By definition a defender will be reacting to my attack. Modern warfare has emphasized the ability of the attacker to operate faster than opponents can react. This can be explained by the OODA loop. Below are the four steps of the classic OODA loop. These are the steps a defender goes through when under attack.
1. Observing or noticing the attack.
2. Orient to the direction, method and type of attack.
3. Deciding what the appropriate response will be.
4. Acting on that decision.
As an attacker I will try and operate at a pace faster than you as a defender can adjust to. I will change my direction, pace, timing and method to force you to continue to process through the OODA loop. This creates confusion and wastes your precious reaction time. As a defender you will need to disrupt or reset your attackers timing with a counter-attack. When you are successful you become the attacker. Your defensive plans should utilize and exploit this concept. Here are a few scenarios:
1. Snipe & Siege
I will begin the attack when I can engage at least half of your party’s military age personnel in one coordinated effort. I will infiltrate my team into concealed positions around your retreat within 50 to 75 yards. I will target any identified leadership with the first volley. Two thirds of my people will be engaging personnel. The other group will target communications antennas, surveillance cameras and any visible lighting assets. I want your group unable to see, communicate or call for help. The members of my band will each fire two magazines in the initial exchange. Two thirds of my group will change to new concealed positions and wait. One third will fall back into an ambush of the most likely avenue of escape. We will stay concealed and wait until you come out to attend to your wounded and dead. We repeat the attack as necessary until any resistance is crushed.
Ensure you adjust the landscape around your retreat so that I don’t have anyplace offering cover or concealment within 100 yards of your residence. You can create decorative masonry walls that can be used to offer cover for personnel close to your residence. Fighting positions can be built now and used as raised planting beds and then excavated for use in the future. These can be extended or reinforced after any significant event. These structures or other measures such as trenching must be sited carefully to avoid allowing them to be used effectively by an attacker if they are overrun.
2. Trojan Horse
For one hit we used an old truck. We forced a refugee to drive it to the retreat gate. We concealed half our group inside the truck. The truck was hardened on the inside with some sandbags around the edges. The other half of our group formed an ambush concealed inside the tree line along the driveway. We killed the driver to make it look good and had one person run away. Those preppers almost waited us out. After nearly three hours they all walked slowly down the driveway. They were bunched up in a group intent on checking out the truck and driver. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
They could have worked together as group to sweep the area 360 degrees around the truck and they would have surely found us. A dog would have also alerted the residents to our presence. They could have taken measures to eliminate the vegetation offering us concealment on the road near the gate. They could have used CS gas or something similar to “deny” any suspicious areas. Lastly they could have done a “reconnaissance by fire”. Shooting into likely hiding spots, including the truck, trying to evoke a response. They should have established an over watch position with the majority of their group. This over watch group would have provided visual security and an immediate response if there were an attack. They were not expecting any additional threats. They didn’t consider that there might be additional danger lurking nearby aside from the truck and they died.
3. Kidnap & Surrender
A few weeks ago we surprised and captured a couple of women out tending a garden. It was totally by chance. We were traveling through a very rural area on our way to another town when somebody heard a tractor backfire. We immediately stopped and I sent a small team to recon the noise. They bumped into a small party tending a field at the edge of their retreat. They seized two women and immediately dragged them back to our vehicles. We began negotiations by sending a finger from each one back to the retreat under a white flag. The rest was easy.
This didn’t need to happen. Better noise discipline would have kept us from discovering their retreat. Some simple boundary fencing or tangle foot could have delayed us. The women should have been armed and aware of such a threat. If they has established an over watch for the garden they could have engaged us before we took our hostages or at least alerted the others that there was a problem. They also could have had a quick reaction Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)developed prior to this incident. That Quick Reaction (QR) force could have followed the kidnappers back to our vehicles and set up an ambush of their own. Rural retreat security is a full time job. If you snooze you may lose everything.
4. Fire and Maneuver
I don’t like this option but sometimes the prize is just too tempting. We typically infiltrate quietly at night to prearranged start points. We begin our attack just before dawn when your senses are dulled by a long night watch or from sleep. Based on our reconnaissance we divided your retreat into positions or zones that need specific attention. We prepare for battle by using an air rifle to target any lights or cameras. Our first priority is to engage any site and destroy or degrade them as much as possible. I split my forces into two supporting groups. One group keeps the target position under constant fire. The other group also fires and maneuvers, closing on the target and destroying it with gunfire or improvised weapons. Many times these positions only have one occupant and the task is relatively easy. Often these positions are easy to spot and are too far from each other to provide any effective mutual support. We will work from one position to the next. In the darkness and confusion most of the defenders are disoriented and ineffective. They fall like dominos. We have also used motorcycles to negotiate obstacles and speed through cuts in the perimeter fence. Then throw Molotov Cocktails into any defensive position as they roar past. If you fall back into your residence we will set up a siege. If we can maneuver close enough, perhaps by using a distraction, we will pump concentrated insecticide into your building or we may introduce liquid Propane gas from a portable tank into the house and ignite it with tracer fire.
If there was enough warning time from your OP you could execute a pre-planned response. Your planned response should be simple, easy to understand and execute. Half your group occupies your fighting positions, two to a position. The rest of your party establishes an over watch and concentrate its fire at the enemies trying to fix your positions. If you had more than enough prepared positions the enemy might not know where to attack. It would also provide more flexibility in your defense based on the direction of attack. I would use Night Vision if available or illumination from flares or lights as a last resort. Rats hate light.
Usually people keep main access points blocked from high-speed approach. Likely avenues of approach should also be blocked or choked and kept under observation. Remember though what keeps me out keeps you in. Typically the common techniques of parking vehicles in roadways will only delay my approach not stop it altogether. An ordinary 12-gauge shotgun, shooting slugs, can stop most types of non-military vehicles at close range.
Don’t forget the threat of fire or other non-traditional weapons in your defensive plans.
You could create the illusion of a “dead end” for your main access road by positioning a burned out trailer home or a couple of burned out cars at the false “end” of the road. Concealing the fact that the road actually continues to your residence.
Lastly, develop a plan to evacuate and evade capture. When faced with a significantly superior force it may be the only viable option. This should include simple, reliable communications or signals such as three blasts on a dog whistle. Your fighting positions and barriers need to be constructed to allow coordinated withdrawal in an emergency. You should establish a rally point and time limit to assemble. I believe this should be a priority in your practice drills. During a real emergency you may be able to rally, rearm and plan your own version of the “snipe and siege” to retake your retreat.
Key messages:
Your rural retreat defense can be visualized as a set of concentric rings:
Location – Location – Location: High and remote are best OPSEC – Think of it as a form of armor or shield: Practice it and protect it. Observation Post / Listening Post: Your first best chance to counter attack Gates / Fences / other barriers: May slow me down. Might keep you in. Fighting positions: Must provide mutual support and allow for evacuation. Residence: Last line. Don’t become trapped People, Planning and Practice
Remember:
An aggressive and unexpected counter strike can win the battle. Stay alert for multiple threats or diversionary tactics. Criminals excel at feigning weakness to lower your guard.
Don’t underestimate me.
My reason for posting this is obvious but should be a reminder survival is always best done as a community. During difficult times there are always things to be done and no one can do everything and still sleep. Everyone can bring something that aids the group. Just a little friendly reminder. - NewAmericaNow
A sniper ambush is a deadly threat. Isolated multi-acre properties may be in greater danger than some subdivisions, due to the lack of manpower to put out a guard force and man a QRF.
Six months after the power goes out, the bands that are still operating will be pretty effective. The stupid ones will all be dead. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to infiltrate a property, do recon from the woodline, and pull a sniper ambush once the key property defenders are identified and caught in the open.
You think it’s a joke? You think that six months after lights out, the surviving marauder bands will be clowns? You think you can guard every tree line and culvert within rifle range of your home 24/7?
You must be superman.
Post-of-the-day! Guys...why settle for liberal when you can have CONSERVATIVE!
“...Women are the absolute biggest stumbling block to doing just some common sense preparation ...”
Some are, some aren’t.
Fortunately for me, my wife is a conservative, and a “gunny”, and she shoots extremely well. She is not squeamish about guns - enjoys shooting .45s and larger, and handles them easily and confidently. Does that make her “Wyettess Earp”? No, but it gives her an edge over the stupid Oprah-brained liberal woman.
Whatever happens, it won’t be pretty.
I can also say, the STUPIDEST thing any feral gutter savage pack could do would be to try to venture into my neck of the woods. Lots and I do mean LOTS of Marine Corps, Army, and Navy flags - most of them with a Gadsden flag as well - hanging from flagpoles around here, every other truck has an NRA roundel on it, and most of the police from our township live here as well.
There’s at the very least a decent platoon-sized reaction force right here, guys with training, guns, and the ability and will to coordinate and use them to defend the area.
And it ain’t a bunch of fat old white guys in camo, either.
Gee...ain’t it wonderful that we have SUCH wonderful “countrymen” living right down the road that we have to worry about this sh*t?
IF we make it through the 2012 elections and remove the assclown from office, you KNOW the cities will burn.
Be as prepared as you can be, and then improvise, adapt, and overcome.
“No dumb bastard ever a war by dying for his country...he won it by making the other dumb bastard die for HIS country.” -G. Patton
“..He wasn’t threatening he was teaching...”
Good point, Squantos.
The scenario he described above sounds like it was paraphrased/lifted from “Lucifer’s Hammer” and “Warday”, two books I read back in the 80s about the collapse of society.
“Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” by James Wesley Rawles is also a good source of survial information.
But nothing beats actually “doing” as a learning tool.
If people aren’t training with other like-minded, trustworthy individuals, they damned well should be.
If nothing happens, then all’s well. But if the dreadful occurs, at the very least you’ll have some bit of an edge.
bttt
“He wasn’t threatening he was teaching”
Of course and I was just making a point that 8-12 people are not going to run roughshod over the general population. They will be like any other criminal element that we have right now. Committing crimes and trying to steal from folks. The difference is that once the SHTF nobody is going to call the cops anymore they will just start shooting at the first sign of trouble.
I just don’t like to scare everybody to death about the roving bands of bikers etc. The truth of the matter at least up in the GA mountains is pretty much what I laid out. People up there right now are locked and loaded and there are a lot of family compounds, retreats, etc. already in place. If the SHTF the militia is going to be out and about and they will be eliminating packs of roving ferals. Everybody else is pretty armed up with assault rifles etc. Its going to be a hard slog for the criminal element in our area. Thats why its good to live here.
In the cities life is going to be incredibly unpleasant. If you can get a place out in a rural area even an acre of land with an RV or trailer on it do it soon.
Good points, Hale.
Thanks for an eye opening report.
” In the cities life is going to be incredibly unpleasant. If you can get a place out in a rural area even an acre of land with an RV or trailer on it do it soon.”
Got it!
She asks what fool would leave security lights on at night for the attacker to shoot with the air rifle?
What fool would be out there tending a garden, unarmed, and without a sniper in a hide watching over the operation? Who would send a loved one out to a field without the ability to cover fire?
(smile from me) My comments?
The writer has some good points. The message is not how evil the attackers are, but what are some really stupid moves on the part of the "attacked".
I think that you miss the point of this guy’s little scenario. He may be an amateur. He may have an overinflated sense of his military prowess. But whatever the case, guys like him only have to get lucky once as far you and I are concerned.
When things become unpleasant, there’ll be a bunch of losers just like him out in the field, looking for what they can can get. And some of them will have had recent military training. As I said, they only have to get lucky once.
So I’m not laughing. And neither should you.
Yep. That's the rationale behind the kit I keep in my vehicle. And that's a little less than the distance I'd have to travel to get back home.
Also, you are correct: some of the responders here fail to understand that the original writer is offering a lesson. They only have to get lucky once. We have to beat them or avoid them every time.
Fortunately for us, several of our neighbors are former LEO or military. We even have a local gunsmith with a full shop. When things become difficult, I expect that a few of the more stand-offish types my see the wisdom in working together. In some ways, we’ve got a good situation. We’re equidistant from Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene. We’re in a relatively quiet and off-the-beaten-track area. There’s enough community here to avoid the total isolation trap, I think.
OUCH!!!
US Congress?
Knuckledragger, fyi many times it’s the women who are the principal survivalist.
(((standing ovation)))
Bingo!
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